History of the Birote.

Camille Pirotte, of Belgian origin, was the Baker of one of the French
battalions that arrived in Guadalajara (the 6 of January 1864), in the State of
Jalisco, in Mexico. He joined as a volunteer the occupation of the French army,
when imperial troops occupied the city of Guadalajara.

You can say that citizens received the French with joy, but with peace of mind,
because in the months before the city had changed command several times and
when the Liberals occupied it they killed many conservative tapatios and
subsequently, when conservatives were occupying it, they did the same with
liberals.

The French general Camille took advantage of the calm of the population to gain
their confidence, following instructions from the Emperor that asked him to
teach to Guadalajara the trades that they knew, in accordance with the
knowledge of the troop, like furniture manufacturing, music and bread making
classes.

Sergeant Cook, surname Pirotte, was commissioned to teach them the way of
making bread. However, as classes were held in the barracks of the invader, were
not attended many students with the fear that his acquaintances consider them
traitors.

To attract more students, they rented a local in the Avenida Vallarta, near the
Park Revolution which at that time was on the periphery of the city.

Here students increased, but the drawback was that they did not find the
"yeast" to make bread; then Pirotte made several tests with the same
mass that made the bread, let it rot, not knowing that the spoil is fermented,
thus found the formula of yeast which is used for leavening bread.

Apart from classes, they had to sell bread. Pirotte became very popular, since
- for orders of Commander - bread which was not sold in 48 hours was given to
the population. At that time there was so much poverty that upon hearing that
they gave away the bread queues were enormous.

No one knows the exact date of when the bread was called "birote"; however,
it is mentioned that among them (the people) they wondered: "Where are you
going to?” They responded: "A bread with Pirote" (pronounced Pirot);
not be able to pronounce it ended in "Birote".

At the end of the war, after the execution of Maximiliano, for the work they
had done, Sergeant Pirotte - just like other prisoners that they free-, he was
offered to stay in Mexico or go to Veracruz to return to their homeland, a kind
of pardon.

Pirotte opted for another possibility, go to the port of San Geronimo in the
Pacific, and that it had information that a Belgian ship made Antwerp San
Francisco travel and would go through the port (what today is Lázaro Cárdenas),
so address the former imperial soldiers.

However, the boat never arrived, and discouraged Pirotte returned to
Guadalajara to marry his former girlfriend, a Guadalajara surname García.

The Pirotte disappeared for fear that would it stop and chose the surname of
his wife. Engineer Néstor Pirotte mentions that he found a descendant of 95
years Pirotte which has a business near the Minerva; however, he had no idea
that Pirotte was his relative by the change of surname.

Already installed, Pirotte continued with the bakery business near a jail by
the Avenida Vallarta. Néstor Pirotte investigated in Brussels, in the Museum of
arms, which effectively Pirotte had been in Guadalajara. Both the engineer
Nestor and Pirotte Baker are in the same city, Verviers in Belgium, without
being relatives.

Finally, he mentions that Pirotte Cook did not belong to the Court of
Maximiliano, as reported in the story of "birote".)